Trials
by Coughdrop Overdose
Summary: After Sora and Riku leave Kairi on Destiny Islands, she spent her time wishing for their return. Now, when four Heartless decide to take her under their wing, she has to find them, and learn more about the heartless than she wanted to know.


Author's Note: Okay, CO here, this is my first posted story, and it's about Kairi. I know that there's a lot of Kairi haters out there, but...oh well. I don't know what to say to you. I happen to like Kairi, she's nice, and she was a mindless puppet most of the game, how can you hate a character that is blank?

Anywho. Enjoy the story, I hope my writing skills are okay, and don't mind the strangeness...

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights, or anything of that sort of Kingdom Hearts. Everything belongs to Square-enix, and Disney, and whoever else it belongs too. I just happen to own alot of strange little ideas, characters, and designs in my unstable little mind.

Here it starts-

It was a cool day on Destiny Islands. The breezes were blowing through the warm air and the sun was shining overhead. All across the chain of small isles could be heard the laughter and fun of the kids who lived there, every child except one. This one child was a girl, not really a child anymore, but still young. Alone she stood on the docks of the beach, her short hair drifting about her face in the wind. Soundless words fell from her lips as she stared up into the perfect blue sky with sad indigo eyes. Over and over the words repeated, a mantra for only the most acute of listeners.

_"Please come back...please come back...please..."_

Kairi sighed silently before turning and heading down the pier towards where her friends were sparring. Every day she would do this, walk to the docks, pray for Sora and Riku to return and then walk back to her friends, never speaking the entire time. She smiled as her hyperactive friend ran over to her, waving enthusiastically as she did.

"Kairi!"

Selphie latched onto her friend tightly, a gigantic grin on her face. Her jade eyes sparkled happily as she looked up at the red-haired girl.

"Are you gonna talk today?"

Kairi smiled and shook her head apologetically, pulling away from her friend and holding her arms behind her back. She turned and gave a small wave at the other two, Wakka and Tidus, before she looked back at the girl in the yellow dress before her.

"Hey, Kairi!" Yelled Tidus from further down the shore, "We're gonna go explore more of the islands, wanna come with us?"

The red-haired girl glanced at Selphie and Wakka unsurely, but seeing the hopeful expressions on their faces, she nodded. She followed Selphie to the boats next to the docks and climbed into hers. Tidus quickly gave instructions to each of the four of them, including himself. Selphie would explore the isle behind the cove, Wakka the one to the north, Tidus would check out the island farthest to the east, and Kairi the smallest one to the south. Each of them set off to their own destinations, Kairi the farthest behind. Once Kairi reached the small island, she tied her boat up and walked onto the white beach. She glanced around curiously at the lush forest covering the isle before setting her shoulders and walking into the trees.

For hours Kairi wandered through the dense jungle, occasionally stopping to examine the fruit and listen to the musical birds thoughtfully. A shrill laugh was heard through the thick forest, and the blue eyed girl turned sharply towards the sound. She cautiously made her way in the direction of the noise, barely containing a gasp at the sight she found. In a clearing of the trees sat a group of Heartless, their yellow eyes glowing in the dim light. One of them, a shadow, whipped its antenna around, the rest of its head following, to stare unnervingly at the intruding girl. The other Heartless soon joined in watching the quiet child.

_"What do you think it is?"_

_"I don't know, but I sense purity..."_

_"Is she what we've been looking for?"_

Kairi spun around wildly, trying to find the source of the voices. Her gaze finally settled back on the creatures before her, a questioning look in her eyes. The apparent leader of the Heartless crawled over to her, narrow gold eyes looking over her calculatingly.

_"Do you understand me?" /I It said at last, I "I'm a wyvern, a type of Heartless, who are you?_

The other Heartless walked closer to their leader, interest plain on their faces. Kairi stepped back fearfully away from the monsters, hoping to make it away from them.

_"Does she talk? Talk! Say something!"_

"W-Why are you bothering me?" The girl's voice finally came, cracking from disuse. The creatures began to move around excitedly at the sound of her voice.

_"It's her! We found her! It's her!"_

The leader made a swinging motion with its tail, silencing the rest of the Heartless. It glared at them maliciously before turning back to the girl.

_"We are searching for a princess...would you know anything about this?"_

Kairi shook her head hastily, her eyes wide.

_"You lie. I was at Hollow Bastion, and I remember you...yes...you were there. So was a duck...and a dog. And two boys...both with darkened hearts..."_

"You mean Riku? A-and Sora?"

The Heartless leader nodded as Kairi took a step forward towards it.

"D-do you know where they are? Can you tell me where they are?"

The wyvern shook its head sadly.

_"I do not know where they are. But, I can help you find them. If you come with us then we can locate them."_

Kairi sat down on the grass of the clearing and put her head in her hands. Thousands of thoughts ran through her head. What if she went with them? Would she find Riku...would she find Sora? Could she trust them? They were Heartless..and why could she understand them? What should she do? Her mind continued this way until the smallest of the Heartless toddled over to her, its eyes barely visible under it's bright red cap.

_"Will you help us too?"_

Bright blue eyes stared up at the small mushroom innocently before the owner smiled and began to laugh.

"I'll help you if you help me. What are your names anyway?"

The creatures looked at each other confusedly.

_"We don't have names. We just call each other by our species."_

Kairi frowned and got to her feet, grinning as she looked each of them over.

"We have a Search Ghost, a Wyvern, a White Mushroom, and a Shadow...so...the ghost I'll call Asari, the Wyvern will be Hae, the mushroom I'll call Akai no Kan or Aki-chan for short, and the Shadow will be Mei. Do you like those names?"(1)

The leader of the Heartless inclined its head and turned back to the rest of the group.

_"We like those names. What is yours?"_

Before Kairi could answer a her name was yelled through the trees. Said girl gasped and ran to the edge of the clearing to look out towards the thin strip of beach visible beyond the foliage. She hurried back to the Heartless and placed a small hand on her head worriedly.

"This is really bad. My friends are searching for me, but you're all Heartless, this spells out disaster with a capital 'D'!"

Asari shook its white head calmly, the chained-eye bouncing lazily off its head.

_"Don't worry, I have a spell that will make us fit in better. Let me just examine you."_

The ghost cast its red light over Kairi and made a slow gesture with its hand. A black light enveloped the four Heartless and in the place of the four creatures, four people stood instead. Asari smiled at Kairi confidently and fixed the pocketwatch of his purple waistcoat importantly. Kairi looked to the other Heartless in amazement. Asari had turned into a 17 year-old white-haired boy with his silver glasses perched precariously on his nose, Mei was a girl similar to Selphie, but with black clothes and pigtails instead of Selphie's yellow dress and flipped up hair. Hae was easily the oldest of them all, dressed in low-slung dark red pants and spiky violet hair in all directions, and lastly Aki-chan was still a child with a far-too-large red hat, and a long white sweater encompassing most of his small frame.

Just as the transformation was completed, Selphie bounded into the clearing, panting loudly. She squealed as she caught sight of Kairi, tackling the girl and beginning 1to talk rapidly. The hyper brunette looked up for a second at the group of human-shaped Heartless before going back to chatting at Kairi. Tidus and Wakka soon ran in also, gazing frantically around the group before simultaneously sighing in relief at the sight of Kairi. Wakka strode over to the two girls and grinned down at them.

"Gave us a scare there, ya Kai? Hey, and could you explain all a'them?" He said motioning to the darkly dressed teens behind them.

Hae quickly sauntered over to Wakka, a pale hand held out in greeting.

"Name's Hae. The little kid's Aki, the white-haired one's Asari and the one in the dress's Mei. We were staying here for a while, and then 'Kairi' found us. Isn't that right?"

Selphie, Tidus and Wakka all turned to look at the red-haired girl, who had stood up and was brushing her lilac skirt off. Kairi nodded in agreement to Hae's question and smiled guiltily. Selphie took one glance at the group before running up to Hae.

"Come with us to the main island! We could always use more friends!"

The rest all agreed with the green-eyed girl and the Heartless exchanged looks. Finally, Aki began to laugh and clapped his hands together.

"We'd love to go with you guys!"

The teens headed off towards the beach and set off towards the rest of the islands in the small boats. As they rowed along, Kairi whispered quietly to herself, the words barely audible.

"Sora...you saved everyone before...now...let me try."

Here it ends-

(1) Okay. As for the Heartless names: Asari means Search, he's a Search Ghost, and I didn't feel like using Baku or something like that. Mei means Dark or Destiny, I'm really fond of Shadows, so I wanted something nice for the Shadow character. Akai no Kan means Red Cap...basically, and Aki means Autumn, and that's the time of year mushrooms grow so... Hae means Fly or Glory, Hae's a Wyvern, and wyvern's fly, and are really cool to me too...so yeah.

Thanks for reading my strange little story. I hope to have the next chapter up next week...hopefully. And...I'll have art for it or something eventually. It'll be in my profile when it's posted. Sayonara, to arigatou!

Chi-chan


End file.
